MEGAHERBIVORES

 A

Here’s a bullet-point TL;DR / tagline gist of the Nautilus article “What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?”:

• 🔹 Ancient megafauna (giant mammals) suffered ∼80% extinction over the last ~50,000 years, leaving only a few survivors like elephants and hippos. (Nautilus)

• 🔹 These were huge animals (e.g., mammoths, giant sloths) that once played key roles in ecosystems. (Nautilus)

• 🔹 New research suggests climate change alone doesn’t align with the timing and patterns of these extinctions. (Nautilus)

• 🔹 Instead, evidence increasingly points to early humans hunting large species as a major driver. (Nautilus)

• 🔹 Human arrival and spread across continents coincide closely with extinction events. (Nautilus)

• 🔹 Large body size (slow reproduction) made megafauna particularly vulnerable to human pressure. (Nautilus)

• 🔹 The megafauna losses reshaped ecosystems and highlight how vulnerable big animals are to human impacts. (Nautilus)

Tagline / one-liner:
👉 “Ancient megafauna largely disappeared not just from climate change but primarily where and when humans arrived and hunted them to extinction.” (Nautilus)

Let me know if you want a 1-sentence summary, slide-style bullets, or a short paragraph version!